Apps on Apple TV

We figured it had to happen, what with Apple TV being an iOS device, that after jailbreaking the device, people would want to run apps on it. Steve Jobs alluded to apps and an Apple TV App Store coming someday, and like someday for Apple, the jailbreak community tends to get there first. But there's a catch -- for now.

Via Gizmodo, we read about iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith, who discovered that apps can be installed easily to Apple TV. This is amazing news, though we wonder if iPad apps on the TV would be as pixellated as iPhone apps on the iPad. Well, turns out we don't know just yet because while apps can be installed, they don't do anything.

Apparently, once you've modified the app types for the Apple TV version of the iOS, the apps don't do anything but take up hard drive space. There's no built-in launcher to make the apps do more than transfer from your computer to your Apple TV. Obviously, Apple has to be working on a means to solve this issue, and with Google TV promising Android App Store sweetness right out of the gate on their new set top box, Cupertino hasn't the slightest choice in the matter.

Not unless they want to keep tinkering away on a hobby, that is. We're betting that with Apple's negotiating rental contracts with content providers and building in Netflix capabilities, they're hoping to make a little coin on this new device. Scratch that. A lot of coin. With a $99 price tag, Apple's clearly hoping to get Apple TV into as many living rooms as is conceivably possible. They've scored maybe a month, maybe as much as six weeks' head start on Google with their new version, but unlike the iPad, which has been breaking all kinds of adoption records, Apple TV doesn't have the luxury of being quite so earth-shattering. We're sure AirPlay is a lovely feature, but it looks like Google has gone a bit further toward making a revolutionary device.

Meanwhile, just as we're sure Apple is busily beavering a way to head Google TV off at the pass app-wise, we're also completely sure that the jailbreak squadrons are working just as hard to make the reality of Twitter on Apple TV happen this year. The question is who will get there first, and will it be enough to keep this hobby alive?